


From the Gallery of Lydia Deetz

by TheArtOfSuicide



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (Cartoon 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, No Smut, Snippets, rated M for suggestiveness, that might change in the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27231634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtOfSuicide/pseuds/TheArtOfSuicide
Summary: A collection of snippets and one-shots centered around a photographer and the poltergeist that haunts her.
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	1. Firsts

**Author's Note:**

> These were all written based on prompts for the Babes Week content creation event on Tumblr, but it is not outside of the realm of possibility that works unrelated to that event may be added in the future.

When he came for her, it was swift and without warning. One moment, Lydia was hunched over her desk in her dorm room squinting over homework, the next she was wrapped up in red satin, ball gagged, and being forcibly walked down the aisle.

"Aww, honey…" He murmured sympathetically down to her ashen, bewildered face once they reached the impromptu altar. "Ya didn't forget about me, did ya? I'd love to hear all about how much you missed me, I really would doll, but considerin' your history of backstabbin', I think this," one ragged claw tapped the shiny ballgag stuffed in her mouth, "is for the best."

The vows were a short affair, what with Betelgeuse being the one doing all the talking. Lydia didn't cry or struggle or try to shout beneath the gag. Part of her always knew he would be back to finish the deal, she just didn't think it would be at three o'clock in the morning on a school night.

**"I now pronounce you man and wife."**

No sandworms crashed through the ceiling. The gag in her mouth fell limp in the ground, but before she could think to use her words, a slimy tongue had taken its place. The world displaced around her, and she knew without needing to look that the mattress pressing into her back was not her own.

"Wait," she gasped, cheeks burning, pushing up on broad, cold shoulders. "Hold on a minute‒"

"Uh uh." He turned grim and serious, one of those large grimy hands plastering over her mouth in an instant so that he could take a break from molesting to address her directly. "This is not a negotiation, sugar tits. You _owe_ me. I'mma let ya talk, n' I don't wanna gag that pretty mouth cause I _like_ the way you talk, but I will if ya give me a reason."

Mind racing, she spat out the only fact that seemed relevant, the only words that made sense in the wake of everything. "I'm a virgin."

For a split second, confusion lit up his gaze, quickly to be replaced by a slow-growing, sleazy grin.

"Don't worry. I'll be _gentle_."


	2. Dream

The dead weren't supposed to dream, but the visions wouldn't stop. Not after her. For just over three months, he was given unfettered access to such a perfect little bride to be, and for those three months, Betelgeuse refrained from indulging in the breathing man's drug of slumber. What was the point? It's not like he had time to pass or energy to regain. His time was much better spent eating up every minute detail available of the dark, precious thing that took up the mantle in the attic he haunted.

_"Whaddya mean ya wanna get **MARRIED**!?"_ He shouted at himself down in the model in a blustering fit the first night he saw her pick up that stupid handbook and start studying. _"I'm not gettin' **FUCKIN'** married!"_

So much for that. The decision wasn't even really solidified until the opportunity presented itself. Jokes on him. _Little teasing whore._ Now, sitting in the Waiting Room, he had nothing but time. Time to plot, to hate, to lust. Time to sleep. Time to dream.

The apparitions didn't match his waking fantasies. They were calm and gentle, showed him the way he wished he could treat her‒ if she had just given him the chance. Sometimes, more often than he would like to admit, he saw himself as a living man holding his beautiful living wife, smoothing a tan palm down the subtle curve of her protruding belly.

"Bullshit…" he grumbled aloud, snapping out of the fantasy and disturbing the new batch of spirits that had taken the place of the ones there before he fell into cruel dreams. "Ain't real, BJ… Ain't never gonna happen…"

And he told himself he didn't want it, that it was a Hellish nightmare, and doubled down on the grotesque imaginings of what he was going to do to that little bitch whenever his number was called.

Still, despite a distinct lack of need, he continued to sleep.


	3. Gift

Lydia had never considered herself special. Just different, which was something else entirely. She didn't feel privileged to spend her days on the playground picking flowers with Mrs. Milkovich, her favorite teacher, the one with the flowering red stain on her floral blouse and such a kind smile. The other children pointed and laughed and it was a long while until Lydia understood why.

"It's a _gift_ ," Mother calmed her when she came wailing into her parent's bedroom one night, complaining that _the baby was crying again._ Father assumed her ramblings were childish nonsense, but Mother knew the truth. Mother knew a nursery when she saw one, and that's clearly what little Lydia's bedroom was intended to be.

"Let's sing to her together. Come, darling..." and she carried her babe back to her room, back toward the infant howls that only the child could hear, and together they hushed lullabies until both Lydia and the specter were calm.

Then, Mother got sick. The skeletal figures that haunted the halls of her ward were too frightening for such a small child to traverse. With naive arrogance, the "gifted" child assumed that it didn't matter. That Mother would be like all the rest of the dead people and she didn't have to visit her in the hospital and see her like that. She would come back. She loved her, didn't she? She _would_ come.

She didn't.

What kind of "gift" would rob her of Mother's last living moments?

Years passed. Fewer and fewer corpses revealed themselves to her, and never the corpse she was waiting on. Eventually, she stopped waiting. For a time, she thought she may have lost the curse of sight altogether until that fateful day on the lawn when people who shouldn't have been there appeared through her camera's lens, peeking down from the attic in the house on the hill. _A Mother and a Father._ People who would eventually grow to love and care for her the way all parents should for their children.

Evelyn Deetz never did make a return, but she wouldn't leave her daughter behind without one last gift.


	4. Magic

"Y'know, they prolly wouldn't call ya a witch if ya didn't fuck around with this crackpot shit."

_"Shut up, Betelgeuse."_

That was low, even for him. And it wasn't even true! They both knew it. Lydia Deetz would be a social pariah with or without her incense and crystal balls and twitchy, witchy little rhymes spoken under her breath.

He winced at the sound of his name, already regretting his stupid quip before she snapped back. He didn't mean it. He was just jealous of how she was pouring over the odds and ends on her desk, wasting her time‒ _his_ time‒ on some dumb "spell" rather than giving all of her attention to him. The way she always should.

"Since when do you care what other people think of me?"

"I don't! I just don't get it Lyds! I can hex whoever th'fuck ya want! Why're ya botherin' with this two-bit hotel magician crap?!"

Exhausted from a long day and hurt more than she realized by his derogatory remarks, Lydia snapped much harder than usual, biting out two more B-words in quick succession to banish him back to the Roadhouse rather than bothering to answer his insulting questions. Immediately, his absence weighed on her, but she was too proud to call him back. Just like he was too proud to apologize or admit wrongdoing ever.

"Stupid… jerkface… asshole…" She muttered as she worked, acrid tears biting behind her lids but refusing to fall.

He shouldn't have been there anyway. It was a full moon tonight. The only witness to her spellcraft required was Hecate. Delicately, Lydia wrote the target of the spell's name on a soft piece of parchment thrice. After rotating it ninety degrees clockwise, she wrote her own name three times as well over his, hatching them together like a game of tic-tac-toe. Lastly, without lifting her fountain pen from the paper, she wrote _love me love me love me love me_ in a perfect cursive circle around the hatchet of their combined names, feeling such a deep yearning for it to come true that one of those bitter tears finally made its trek down her cheek.

Then, she folded it again thrice before wrapping the small bit in a ribbon from her own hair to keep it bound. With a soft kiss placed on the bow, it was deposited in the tiny jar before her. Dark wildflower honey came next, then several dried petals from a flower he once picked for her. If she could have, she would have included a photo of them together to help strengthen the spell, but her secret love was a bit photographically challenged.

Cinnamon and ginger were sprinkled over the concoction‒ for lust and passion‒ and also several drops of pure vanilla‒ for sweetness and love. As each ingredient was added, Lydia repeated; "Make him love me… Please make him love me… Love me… Please?" Almost as if she were demanding it of each individual component of the recipe.

There. It was time to make her appeal.

Completely invested in her witchy dealings, the crazed jealous eyes of a certain banished poltergeist were invisible to her behind the vanity's surface. He never really left, too pissed off that she banished him at all. Now, he was fucking _livid_. Whoever the vile motherfucker was that had stolen HIS Lydia's heart, he was a dead man walking.

Lydia opened the french doors that led out to the balcony, allowing natural moonlight inside, and stepped out to the porch, face to the moon, and jar upraised. It took everything Betelgeuse had not to make it just explode in her hands and ruin the entire ritual. That would hurt her.

"As this honey is sweet to me…"

He could feel his hackles raising, her vanity vibrating with his anger quietly enough for her to not take notice from the balcony.

"So will Betelgeuse be sweet to me…"

Everything stopped. A wild, goofy grin cracked across his face before he could help it. Maybe this Wicca stuff wasn't such a load of bullshit after all.

"So mote it be."


	5. Séance

She wasn't anything like him.

That's what Lydia told herself both at the start and end of these rendezvous. See, their motivations were different‒ and at least Lydia wasn't a total liar. She could communicate with the other side… whether or not she was actually communicating with Great-Great Grandpappy Jessie? That was the question, wasn't it?

"Join hands," came a grave whisper from beneath the dark figure at the head of the table's veil, a multitude of candles lighting the way for her to watch for any activity. Sometimes things happened. Sometimes not. It didn't really matter.

Lydia got paid at the end either way, and college was so expensive.

"We have gathered here on this night at the witching hour to call upon Jessie Gardener."

Intent was now cast. As per the arrangement, Lydia kept a list of questions the loved ones wished to ask on a sheet of paper in front of her. A crystal ball was her medium for divination. Currently, every pair of eyes in the room was cast on it, all except Lydia. She knew to check the environment first. When nothing happened to signify any kind of change, she continued.

"Are you here with us, Jessie? Your grandsons are at odds and hoping you can answer some of their questions."

"I's s'posed to get the part o' yer land with with the fence n' the waterin' hole n' this greedy sumbitch cain't keep his got-danged hands to 'imself!"

"You shut yer mouth, Phillip, Grandpappy always liked me better n' everyone knows it! He wanted me to have that land!"

"Quiet." Though Lydia doubted greatly that poor Grandpappy Jessie had any interest in settling the petty grievances of his ungrateful legacy, she at least demanded the proper decorum from her customers. "He's dead. He has better things to do than _this_. If you want him to show, you have to be patient."

The brothers and their wives grumbled, glancing shiftily at each other. This wasn't going well. Nothing was happening, and this didn't seem to Lydia like the type of clientele that would take _"sorry, try again, and by the way that'll be a hundred even"_ as an answer.

"Jessie Gardener," Lydia implored again, somewhat more desperately this time. The brothers' agitation with their deceased grandfather seemed to have easily shifted onto her. "Please… if you are here… your nephews would like to talk to you… Please."

Again, nothing happened. Lydia's heart pounded. Kicking herself for not having thought to bring backup‒ she rarely conducted these craigslist séances, and only when she was really desperate for cash‒ she began to calculate how much she would have to leave behind in order to make a run for it to the car if things started to look nasty.

"He ain't showin', Phil," one cousin whispered to the other.

"I know, Paul."

Not good. Not good at all. Please, Lydia mouthed one more time, each of her palms sweaty in a random redneck's. Third time's the charm.

All the windows in the room shot open at once. Thunder cracked across the sky, and the crystal ball at the center of the table began to glow electric green. Now, Lydia's heart pounded for a different reason. No, no no no no.

_"I'm heeeeerrreeeeee….."_

A gritty shriek cackled out from the glowing orb to the delight of the entire table‒ sans the medium.

"Break hands!" She ordered, yanking herself out of the circle in an attempt to remove whatever force the poltergeist was using through her, but it was too late. She had already unwittingly acted as a conduit for his abundance of chaotic energy. "It's not Jessie! It's something else! Don't!"

The entire table was a-buzz, all except Lydia who lingered by the exit to make sure these people weren't in danger. She called this entity here, after all, and it was her responsibility to see him out. The endless questions about inheritance and property and "who did ya like best?" were cut off by another gale of horrifically familiar laughter‒ to Lydia. These people shouldn't have recognized this voice whatsoever, but people saw what they wanted to see when it came to spirits.

_"You think I LIKED any o' you sheep-fuckin' cousin-kissin' rat bastards?! I couldn't WAIT to kick the bucket! Lemme tell ya, kids, yer Aunt Bessie hasn't aged a day, I mean godDAMN I thought she was a looker when we was playin' Doctor as kids, but a couple decades under the dirty have done her some GOOD!"_

With a heavy scoff and eyeroll, Lydia facepalmed while poor dead Jessie's relatives reacted in horror at the filth spewing from the crystal ball. She tried to tell them. If they wanted to believe this was Grandpappy, it was their funeral. Well. It looked like Betelgeuse probably didn't have anything homicidal in mind. As long as no one said his name, it was probably safe to just slip out the front door while they were all distracted…

_Slam!_ No such luck.

_"Where d'ya think yer goin', lil Lady? I don't think you've been paid properly for services rendered..."_

There was a stiff silence, the relatives staring at Lydia and Lydia staring back, no one quite sure what the other was supposed to do here.

_"... well?"_

"O 'Course!"

"You got it, grandpappy!"

Scrambling, the brothers left and returned quickly with handfuls of crumpled bills for the petite girl, the sum adding up to much, much more than Lydia originally requested. That was unexpected. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Lydia considered the money quietly before tucking it away and leveling a thoughtful look at the crystal ball. The door behind her clicked open behind her and the message was clear. She was free to go, money in hand, and all he wanted was to have a little uninterrupted fun with these hicks.

Seemed fair.

"Thanks," she grinned cheekily on her way out, not speaking to the brothers.

_"Anytime…"_ Was the last she heard before the door shut, the echo of screams that followed doing nothing to kill the million-dollar smile she wore on the walk back to her car.


	6. Ghost Stories

Betelgeuse told the best stories. As a natural-born entertainer with countless centuries under his belt, this was a man who knew how to work a room. Lydia considered this both his best and worst trait depending on what he wanted from his audience.

At her sleepovers, he wanted the screams of little girls‒ _Lydia didn't like to dissect the "why"‒_ and thus as Betty told ghoulish, gut-churning, skin-crawling tales that sent the other guests screaming home, and Lydia into fits of giggles at his antics. They would then spend the rest of the evening, him in his true skin, eating all the leftover snacks and partaking in slumber party games by themselves, just the two of them.

Lydia didn't mind. She liked his stories, and her best friend was worth a thousand dumb breathers.

Her favorite stories were the ones he saved just for her, when no one else was around and there wasn't even the slimmest chance of an unwelcome soul overhearing. This is when he would talk about his life. His _living_ life. These instances were few and far between, but Lydia cherished every detail.

He never mentioned how he died and Lydia rightly took this as the cue it was to _never_ ask. She knew that he lived in a small Turkish village in the midst of the black plague, and that he worked for the village headman, though exactly what he did as an occupation remained a mystery to her and likely always would.

She knew that he was alone for a long time.

"You dunno how good you got it, babes," he had drawled to her once at the beginning of one of these rare talks. Speaking of these things softened him somehow, kept his brow smooth and his animated voice level, if melancholic. "Girls like you didn't last very long back in my day."

He didn't diverge further details. With what Lydia considered implicit understanding of his omittance, she was thankful. She didn't want to know the things he had seen done to weird, freakish outcast girls like her in the 1400s.

What Lydia didn't know is that Betelgeuse didn't want her to know what he, personally, had done to weird, freakish, outcast girls like her in the 1400s.

Or maybe he did.

Maybe he drank too much and told her these things because he was looking for absolution from an imaginary God that had forsaken him a long time ago anyway. Maybe he was just looking for absolution from _her_.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," he reminded sardonically through the cigarette butt clenched between his teeth, eyes dark and glittering on the pale girl draped in shadowy fabric that he hovered above. She had lost interest in her homework in favor of listening to him prattle on drunkenly, big beautiful eyes locked unwaveringly on his ugly mug. That's what he liked to see.

 _Good girl_ , but he had been selfish enough for now. With a quirk to his lips and a tap of his gritty claws on her desk, he popped out of existence‒ another rarity Lydia associated with these special talks. Normally, it was like pulling teeth getting him to leave.

 _"Do yer homework,"_ his voice lingered in the air where he disappeared, _"n' don't forget t'call me back b'fore ya go t'sleep fer yer bedtime story. It'll be a good one."_


	7. Nightmares

The kid had fun dreams. It didn't take long after they struck their unlikely friendship for the poltergeist to begin taking liberties where he shouldn't. Did she honestly expect better of him? Betelgeuse pretended not to know the answer to that question.

This started the same way their entire arrangement began‒ with him being too curious, and her being too trusting. If she wasn't ready to so fully and completely accept him and everything he was, he wouldn't be able to slip into her dreamscapes and get as comfortable as he did. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he would find a dream-version of himself already there and got to sit back and get his ego stroked watching this little freak's twisted mind worship him.

It was about damn time somebody got with the program and realized how great he was.

She was constantly constructing scenarios that cast him as The Hero, herself often a damsel in distress in need of rescuing; from school bullies, from dragons in towers that resembled her stepmother, from boys her age who clearly didn't have eyeballs in their head because they thought she was "ugly." Even at twelve, BJ knew was going to be a stunner. She had all the ingredients, the cake just needed to bake a little longer.

So, Lydia wanted him to be her Hero. Who knew why? Certainly not the perverted old dead man rooting around in her dreams, searching for validation in the fantasies of a child. If a Hero was what she wanted, a Hero was what she would get‒ or the best damn sham Hero he could scrap together for her, anyway.

Just like Lydia, Betelgeuse _constructed scenarios_. But these didn't happen in fantasies or in anyone's imagination. They happened in the Neitherworld. It wasn't hard to just… let trouble find them. Joke around, play incompetent, let his little Princess get snatched up so he had to play Big Bad Daddy and rescue her. It was a fun, fun game, and Betelgeuse quickly became addicted to the charade.

Bully the Crud was looking for a new wife? That's a fantasy he hadn't enacted yet, and dangling Lydia in front of him in her cowgirl best was simple enough. Nothing gave him a rush like setting these chumps up for failure then having sweet, naïve Lydia thank him for fucking them up after.

The lie was so good, sometimes he even had himself convinced.

The kid had a rough childhood that she refused to talk about. He was only able to piece things together through eavesdropping on her parents and witnessing the rare nightmare. They didn't happen hardly ever. She was strong, his Lydia. He never would have known what his girl had gone through if he hadn't watched it with his own eyes, jade fire burning up the crimson cast dreamscape as a man-shaped figure attacked his babes‒ much smaller than she was now, and she was already _so_ small.

Lydia would never know that he hunted down her biological mother's old boyfriend and gutted him, made him scream apologies and beg for mercy that would never come. Lydia didn't know that this was why the Roadhouse was off limits for a week‒ "remodeling"‒ so that he could have space to peel flesh, yank teeth, and stick rusty needles in nasty places without any cute, overly-trusting mortal girls overhearing more nightmare fodder.

Betelgeuse wasn't sure when it stopped being a fun game and started being his reason for existing. Sure, he still let her get kidnapped on the occasion so he could put on theatrics, "rescue" her, get his fix, but now he wanted to save her from everything. If it was cold, his jacket was hers. If she was bored, he was her entertainer. If she was lonely, he would be anyone she wanted him to be‒ a girlfriend, a pet, a teacher, a cousin, anyone and anything, he was hers.

Likewise, she was _his_.

Maybe she hadn't realized that yet, but it didn't matter. Not to him. Nothing was going to be changing this. He had put in the work and wasn't about to let anything take her away from him. They had plenty of time for Lydia to come to terms with the true nature of their relationship.

Until then, and even after and forever whether she wanted it or not, Betelgeuse would remain the vanquisher of her nightmares, both real and imagined.


End file.
